Kenya's new power-sharing agreement has managed to contain the flames that were threatening to engulf the country, but it forces two men who have distrusted and hated one another for years to work together.

Under the terms of the deal, negotiated by an incredibly patient and tenacious Kofi Annan, opposition leader Raila Odinga will hold the newly-created role of prime minister and Mwai Kibabki will keep the president title.

This was the role the two men were supposed to have played five years ago. When the NARC coalition came to power in 2002, Kibaki promised to create the role of prime minister for Odinga, in return for his support in the election. The job never materialised and instead Odinga was made minister for roads and thwarted from filling in a single pot hole. When Kibaki did propose to reform the constitution, he suggested a system that would give the president the right to appoint and sack the prime minister.

This new power-sharing role offers a much more even system, where the prime minister commands parliament and can only be removed by parliament. But this new deal creates too many chiefs. As well as the president and prime minister, there is a vice-president, and two deputy prime ministers. This is hardly the best way to get dismantle the "big man" syndrome that has dominated and blighted Kenyan politics so far, and it is hard to see how the coalition government can hold the strong personalities struggling for power within it.

The deal also does not really address the fact that Kibaki is old and frail, and may well make way for a successor soon. Will this new president be willing or able to take on such a hamstrung role?

For Kenya, this power-sharing deal is only the first small step in a very long journey. The most horrifying part of the violence that engulfed Kenya after the elections was the speed at which communities distanced themselves from one another, and saw themselves as Kikuyu or Luo or Kalenjin first. This dismantling of Kenya cannot be easily reversed.

Since the power-sharing deal was announced, there has been another round of land clashes in west Kenya, sparked by long-standing tensions between two clans at the foot of Mount Elgon.

The new coalition government has to address the issues of poverty, land distribution and over-centralisation straight away if it is to heal the country that was so badly wounded by its leaders.